Basic cookie dough recipe:
1c shortening
1sc sugar
1sc brown sugar
1t salt
2 eggs
1t baking soda
1t vanilla
2c flour
Flavoring
Measures:
t = teaspoon
c = cup
sc = scant cup
Combine shortening and suger and beat until smooth.
Add brown sugar and salt and beat until smooth.
Stir in eggs
Stir in soda and vanilla.
Stir in flour.
Stir in flavoring.
Spoon on to cookie sheets
Bake 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees
The flavoring can be almost anything. I prefer just chocolate chips (1c) but oatmeal, oatmeat raisin, peanut butter, ground walnuts, etc are all good. The recipie is for basic cookies, but you can make them in to whatever you want.
Anyone can make these cookies, but here is how tro make them good. Beating the sugar/shortening/salt means "beat the hell out of it." The longer you let it run in the mixer, the lighter your cookies will be. I'll dump all of this stuff in and let it run while I mess around on the computer, because I don't need to keep an eye on my mixer. You can get away with 5 minutes and stll get good cookies, but I'll let it run for 30+ minutes. I also only put in about half the salt because I like it better that way, but that's up to the person eating them. You just have to play with it until you like it.
The rest of the ingredients you just want to minimally stir in. If you mix too much at this point you will ruin the cookies. This is especially true for the flour. My standards for "ruin" are probably waaaay pickier than most people's so take this lightly. Also try to use somewhat fresh ingredients. Old baking soda (2+ years) and old flour (6+ months) just don't make good cookies. I go through this stuff fast enough that it's usually not a problem.
Bake them until they're light brown on top. Play around with test cookies until you find what you like.